


sending my confessions out to sea

by brokenfeathers (forsyte)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Lonely Fuckery, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Extremely Dubious Consent, Incest, Isolation, M/M, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Ideation, The Lukas Family, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Victim Self-Blaming, age difference is extant but not discussed in depth, finally a fic written for me and my trauma, peter doesnt like this either but what is he going to do initiate confrontation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:41:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsyte/pseuds/brokenfeathers
Summary: If he'd had a scrap of sense about him he would have turned and smiled, liar to liar, and not let on that he was lost, that he'd been running away. Said he'd wanted to go camping. Said anything,anything,other than—"Please," he sobbed, and a bruised hurt flared in his knees as they hit the ground but his arms were already wrapping tight around Peter's leg and he barely noticed. "Please don't leave me alone, please, I can't, I don't want to die—”--Evan would have done anything to leave. That doesn't mean he's at peace with himself.
Relationships: Evan Lukas/Peter Lukas, Naomi Herne/Evan Lukas
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	sending my confessions out to sea

**Author's Note:**

> _sending my confessions out to sea  
>  so nothing can come back to haunt me_  
> "Pacific," Wolfgun

Evan didn't know when the thoughts had started, exactly. Maybe they happened along the way. Maybe Peter just hadn't been around enough when he was a child, and was around too often now. Maybe— 

it didn't matter, really, because he was old enough to know they were wrong.

The scene in his mind started the same way as all of Peter's visits to Moorland House did, with his maybe-uncle maybe-cousin _manifesting_ , greeting him cheerfully as he jumped (and, when he got to be old enough, swore) and talking on for a brief period, and in real life he disappeared, every time, after a short while, leaving Evan as alone as he'd ever been and half-wondering if he’d dreamed the man up.

In his fantasy, though, he talked back, and Peter— 

Peter didn't like that. 

And he'd heard voices raised once behind closed doors, the memory of what an angry Peter sounded like seared into his brain, and so it wasn't hard to imagine the way his voice would go harsh exactly the same as the videos Evan had watched in his room with the lights out and the volume turned almost all the way down, sharp and hard as he ordered Evan to his knees and unzipped his trousers, demanded an _apology_. 

(It was wrong, wrong and terrible, but he couldn't—) 

And then he'd force Evan, trembling, to suck his cock, but the worst part would be the way his hands would feel in Evan's hair. Peter ruffled it, once, when he was younger, and it was _wrong-wrong-wrong_ to imagine it like this but it would feel like heaven. It would feel like not being alone, even if it hurt, and he wanted it as badly as he wanted anything. (As badly as he wanted not to want it.)

The fantasy didn't always go the same way. Sometimes—sometimes Peter perched himself on the very edge of the old armchair in one of Moorland House's endless sitting rooms, the one that was Evan's favorite because the fireplace actually warmed the room, and in Evan's head he would sit back, lassitudinous from too much scotch and solid around the edges, for once not on the verge of disappearing, and Evan would dare to sit down on the arm of the chair, and Peter would pull him into his lap and reach his hand, warm and possessive, into Evan's pants, and Evan would be as quiet as he could and maybe Peter would let him sprawl bonelessly across the chair, held and safe, for a minute or two after coming. Maybe he—

(awful, shameful,) 

maybe he'd shove his fingers into Evan's mouth and tell him to make himself _useful_ and Evan would be so happy, so grateful, to comply, because if he could be useful then maybe he could be _wanted._

(No one would ever want him like this.) 

Or sometimes the two combined, sort of, and the Peter in his head would get him on his knees and keep him there as he sipped his drink and stared off into space, or caught up on whatever business he had to sign off on (Evan wasn't sure how much work he even did), or talked about his crew with real fondness in his voice (and that hurt, it hurt, but it didn't matter because—), and all through it Evan would be on his knees with Peter's cock in his mouth, not lapping or sucking or moving his head where it lay against Peter's thigh but just sitting there, and every once in a while Peter would forget and card his fingers through Evan's hair absent-mindedly, and Evan would bask in the sliver of almost-intimacy because he was

(pathetic, because he was touch-starved, because he was _so very—)_

lonely, the kind of heart-shredding headachey grinding loneliness that made him look out from the top windows at the ground below and wonder, the kind of loneliness that mixed with the boredom and the fear in his throat til he'd lock himself away and fantasize desperately about the only person who’d ever showed him the slightest shred of concern, and even that mostly accidental, and no wonder, when he took that concern and spat out _this._

It wasn't anything like any of those, when it happened.

(When he did it. When he asked for it.)

Moorland House stretched out for miles and miles around and sometimes when the mist burned off Evan could see exactly how large the grounds were. The sun was weak, and the fields were large, and looking out over them felt exactly as miserable as being trapped inside by the opaque, frigid fog. (It wasn't like anyone would try and find him if he got lost, after all, and he didn't trust any kind of marker to stay where he'd put it.) The road trailed off into the distance—north, if the compass he held was right, though it was never a sure thing—and Evan was running away.

Or walking away. There was no call to rush, after all. His pack was heavy enough without exerting himself, and he'd get where he was going eventually.

As the winding road carried him away from the house, his spirits rising with every step that he took, he felt compelled to whistle. It started wavery and thin and quiet in the air, but grew louder as he walked, and he fancied he could almost hear birds chirping to match. Moorland was almost devoid of animal life save where it grew twisted and wild at the edges—being prey was Lonely enough, it seemed, for the things like wolves that he knew stalked the area to still live around there—and he wondered what real forest would look like. 

As the day wore on, he grew tired of walking, and sat down on the side of the road to rest and eat.

(If he hadn't, would he have—?)

The mist he hadn’t noticed rising around him followed him down and began to curl around him like a great predator, and with a shock of fear he realized he could no longer remember which direction he'd come from. The compass in his hand spun uselessly, as they always did in what he'd come to think of as fog storms. 

It didn’t take him very long at all to realize that the ones he’d seen before were mild. Compared to this monster, the clammy damp that sent fingers of ice down his spine and weighed his very spirit down, they were shreds and wisps, and though he pushed himself up again and began walking, reluctant even as he knew he had to, his feet soon dragged. What had he been thinking—he was running away from the only family he'd known, and expecting people to meet him with open arms at the end of it—he'd thought he could leave Moorland and he'd be fine, running away was practically a tradition, and he was almost an adult now—he'd thought he could live. He'd thought he could escape. He'd thought he could _live._

Those last two thoughts pounded through his brain like a drum, damning, the beat to which he walked even as tears dripped down his cheeks and coursed into his mouth, even as they circled each other, Wartenberg wheels carving spikes of pain into his chest, even as with every inhale the cold-sharp air thick as soup wended its way into his lungs until he felt like he was drowning in it, God, he was drowning, he was bleeding like he'd had briars torn out of his ribs, he must have been, because nothing else could feel like _this—_

"Hello, Evan," said a familiar voice behind him, pleasant without an ounce of feeling in it. 

If he'd had a scrap of sense about him he would have turned and smiled, liar to liar, and not let on that he was lost, that he'd been running away. Said he'd wanted to go camping. Said anything, _anything,_ other than— 

"Please," he sobbed, and a bruised hurt flared in his knees as they hit the ground but his arms were already wrapping tight around Peter's leg and he barely noticed. "Please don't leave me alone, please, I can't, I don't want to die—” 

He couldn't, wouldn't look up, not with snot and tears smearing across Peter's well-tailored trousers. (Back from another meeting then, or a funeral.) But the silence stretched on, broken only by his own whimpers, and eventually he had to chance a glance upward, if only to distract himself. 

Peter looked down at him with eyes that chilled him down to the marrow, the same merciless and proud expression on his features, for the first time, as the one that seemed to come naturally to every other Lukas, and terror shot Evan’s vision through with silver sparkles. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears. (There was something behind the mask, though, a crack, and what shone through was not Peter's plastered-on cheer but something altogether more like uncertainty, or—)

(fear?) 

And then Peter smiled, all disappointed indulgence. "Evan," he said, "you shouldn't wander so far when you're so susceptible. Moorland can be a very lonesome place." 

"I know," Evan didn't say. "I was looking for a camping spot," Evan didn't say. "Then take me back," Evan didn't say.

"Then show me the way out," he should have said, defiant.

What he said was "I'm sorry," what he said was "I know, I'm sorry, I just," what he said was _"please,"_ like any of those were full sentences, like he was coherent enough to get his meaning across, voice desperate, a fish bleeding in shark-filled waters and too injured to care. 

"Evan," Peter said again, and now he sounded distinctly uneasy _(as if on the verge of fleeing)_ and the absolute last thing Evan should have done was cling tighter and rub his cheek against the inside of Peter's thigh in desperation, as if affection would entice him to stay, but what little of his self-restraint remained had withered and died at the thought of being _left._ And he had nothing to offer except his silence and nothing to give save his absence, and he was absolutely sure that if Peter left him here he would be taken into the fold of the Forsaken, and no one would care to mourn him _._

"Please," he said, one last time, softly, "don't leave, Peter, don't leave me, I'll do anything, I'll—" and his voice broke on a sob, ashamed, but he soldiered on, half-whimpered "suck you off," and felt Peter tense like a drawn pistol. 

“You—what?” said Peter, blankly. He sounded rather like Evan had slapped him, and fresh tears flowed down Evan’s face. If he’d gone and said _that_ and Peter was still going to leave him here—

Death wouldn’t be such a bad option, after all that. 

But Peter, for all he looked as if someone had handed him a particularly obtuse puzzle and told him to solve it, wasn’t disappearing. “I’m sorry, you want me,” he said slowly, “to…” 

“I don’t want you to leave me here alone,” Evan interrupted, staring up at him, willing him to understand. “I’ll do anything.” 

The look on Peter’s face now lay somewhere between wrong-footed and considering, and Evan waited for him to catch up with a strange impatience, the swooping in his stomach seeming uncertain of itself, as though it wasn’t sure whether it was nausea or anticipation. He couldn’t be sure, either. His hands felt too large, his mouth dry, his skin crawling preemptively, as if it just prickled enough he could somehow slip out of it and get away, but he didn’t want to get away, didn’t want to stop clinging to Peter, as if by pressing himself close enough he’d go beyond the reach of the hungry, grasping tendrils surrounding the two of them. As if he could trade in a smaller wound for a greater, as if he could gnaw off his own leg to escape this trap. 

Peter’s hands went to the fastenings of his formal trousers, the rich black fabric marred by Evan’s tears soaking into it, and as if in a dream he undid the button, reached for the zipper, staring down at Evan as if expecting him to bite. His expression was not vindictive, or fond, or distracted—rather, it was still faintly confused, as if his hands were moving without his permission. As if he was waiting to see what Evan did with his chance. 

His pants were soft. Evan leaned up to mouth at the front of them, wishing he were anywhere else, wishing he weren’t doing this, that he hadn’t offered, that he hadn’t left in the first place. Above him he heard a sharply indrawn breath and Peter’s hand landed on his head, tightening into a fist around his short hair, just long enough to tug at, and it felt awful—

(It felt so good he could cry, that was the worst thing about it—)

Evan would gladly have waded through a kilometer of mud rather than let go of Peter's leg. But that wasn't the choice offered to him, and so he reached up with one hand, painfully, every part of his mind screaming at him, and shakily tugged at Peter's pants til they were out of the way, and hating himself he leaned in to lap at his cock. 

It was soft, stiffening under his tongue, and tasted of—flesh, mostly, faintly salty-sour with sweat. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't this, wasn't something so innocuous for how he felt, for the pain in his scalp or the soft noises above him. He sucked lightly and Peter made a ragged sound, half-disbelieving, and his hips twitched into Evan's mouth. 

His hands found Peter's hips and he found a rhythm and he did his best to ignore Peter's breathless sounds, louder than Evan had ever been, and the hand that nestled in his hair and pulled too hard (except when it didn't, and that was worse.)

(His best wasn't good enough, of course.) 

It didn't take long, from one perspective, for Peter to shudder, for Evan to gag on bitter-salt and pull off and wipe his mouth, still holding on to Peter with one arm. (From another, it took a raw and ruinous eternity.) For Peter to let go, to stare down at Evan as if in judgement, as if having never seen him before.

Evan unwound his arm carefully. Peter turned and strode into the mists and Evan yelled after him and scrambled to catch up, and almost lost him twice, and then _did_ lose him—

But then the mists lifted, and he stood before a forbidding set of wrought iron gates, propped just slightly open, and inscribed on them were the words _Moorland House,_ and beyond them lay the open road.

  
  


He knew what he’d been doing, was the thing. Knew that he was _wrong-wrong-wrong,_ that he didn’t deserve what he had, knew that under his skin was opaque fog and over that like a thin film of algae was what he’d done to escape it. 

(If he found himself back at Moorland he knew he’d do it again, and more than anything that thought kept the thrumming panic and shame under his skin alive.)

Knowing this on an intellectual level never made being reminded of it any easier, though, and the night had been going so well that he’d almost forgotten.

He leaned around Naomi to steal a chip from Leo’s plate and shoved it to the back of his mouth so fast he nearly choked, grinning at him around the taste of victory. “Too slow,” he crowed before swallowing.

“Evan,” laughed Naomi, leaning into him and wrinkling her nose. (She’d been so lonely, and he was living on borrowed time, but God if every time she smiled wasn’t a gift a thousand times over.) “At least _swallow_ first.” 

“I’m a busy man, I don’t have time for that,” he retorted, and jerked his hand back just before Leo could smack him. Leo hopped off his stool, advancing menacingly, and Evan made a show of leaning back, holding his palms up in surrender. Kept half an eye out for the staff—most of them frowned on slapfights on the grounds they tended to escalate, and he wasn’t feeling up to the killjoy tonight—

Leo stopped, checked his phone and groaned. “Gotta go, need to be over at my uncle’s new place to help him get set up.” 

“We’ll get our rematch one of these days,” Evan said, waving him off. “Goodnight, sleep well, don’t let him take a chunk out of you with a hammer.”

“That hardly _ever_ happens these days,” Leo said, and then with a wave he was gone, and the group was down to just Evan and Naomi and their classmate Russ, who raised his eyebrows after the retreating Leo. 

“Hm?” Evan prompted him, not at all sure he wanted to hear the answer. The man’s sense of humor was a coin toss between hilarious and ridiculously vulgar on a good day, and it was getting late. 

“How much d’you wanna bet they’re fucking,” Russ said, propping his head up on his fist, and suddenly there were cold fingers of mist reaching down Evan’s back. 

_“Russ,”_ winced Naomi, and fake-gagged. “Don’t be disgusting, I’m trying to eat.”

“No, seriously,” said Russ, and he was grinning now, and Evan’s pulse was pounding in his ears. “I swear they spend all their time together, Leo hasn’t had a date the whole damn time I’ve known him, he’s the most whipped man I’ve ever seen for his _uncle…_ I’m telling you. Secret love affair. Boom, done, you owe me.” He pointed at Evan. “Back me up here.”

“Naomi is right, that’s pretty gross,” Evan’s mouth said, and he felt his own face crinkle in mock-disgust as if from far away and hoped his voice didn’t sound off. Judging by the way they both looked at him, it was a lost cause. _Damn it,_ this wasn’t the time, he could feel fog in his lungs and it was an effort to breathe normally and he was too buzzed to act right. 

_“Wow,”_ Russ enunciated, and paused for just long enough that Evan had three heart attacks in a row, wondering wildly just what Ross was about to say, wondering if it was obvious, what he’d done, wondering if other people could see the film under his skin—“Should’ve stopped a shot or two ago, my toothless grandmother could’ve said that clearer.”

 _Oh thank fuck,_ he did not say out loud. “Yeah, I’m a bit out of it,” he replied, dizzy with relief. “Naomi, are you—”

She was already putting her jacket on. “Ready to go,” she finished. 

“We still have to—”

“I’ll cover your tab, pay me back later, you two lovebirds get out of here so you can stop faking the drunkard act,” said Russ, waving them away. “Cheers, et cetera.”

“Thanks _ever_ so much,” Evan said, channeling every ounce of false cheer he could despite the buzzing sparks filling him up and urging him to run. (And who had he learned that from—?) “Good riddance, I’m sure.”

And then they were out into the cool night air. Naomi kept looking at him, visibly concerned, but she didn’t seem to know what to say and for once, for once he wasn’t in the mood to start the conversation. 

“Evan,” she began slowly, and he prayed to the universe at large that he’d be able to fake his way through. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” he lied, “just tired. Think I overdid it, I’m a little—” he pulled a face and waved his hand around wordlessly. “Scattered.” 

“I noticed,” said Naomi. “I’ve never seen you check out of a conversation so fast.”

He shrugged, and they walked in silence for a minute.

“But if you’re sure there’s nothing to talk about…” she prompted.

( _“Russ._ Don’t be disgusting, I’m trying to eat.”)

(Don’t be _disgusting.)_

(Little too late for that.)

“I’m sure,” he said, and meant it. 

**Author's Note:**

> _it was warmer out, on a day like today / and the sun had meant to be shown / but the world outside was a shadowed gray / and I knew why I felt so alone_
> 
> boy it sure is a lovely day to post fic about how people being loudly disgusted about incest has a wider blood circle than they think it does. i wrote all 3k or so of this yesterday while sleep-deprived and somehow it still has a tighter arc than most of my fic. something to be said about writing from the heart, i suppose!  
> iiiiiiiiiif you're here to tell me i should regret posting or writing or thinking about it you can fuck all the way off. if you're here to tell me that i am an evil genius: thank you, i know, i love making fictional characters suffer, comments are my bread and butter.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] sending my confessions out to sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26170009) by [Yvonne (connect_the_stars)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/connect_the_stars/pseuds/Yvonne)




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